Failure of Iran’s attack on Israel makes Third World War less likely

I suspect that it is just a coincidence and that Israeli weapon designers do not pay much attention to Islamic symbolism. But in the Muslim world, “Iron Dome” – the name of Israel’s air defence system – is bound to make people think of the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam’s holiest sites, now under Israeli occupation – and protection. To be fair to the Israelis, whenever I have visited the site, the Dome of the Rock has always appeared to be well-guarded. Visitors are instructed to take off their shoes and there is a generally vigilant air, as there needs to be, and not just for footwear. Over the years, Israeli crazies have argued that the Mosque should be destroyed, because it is on top of Solomon’s Temple Mount. God forbid.

Before Iran’s attack on Israel over the weekend, there had been scepticism as to the regime’s intentions. Up to now, the Iranians had been restrained. There were suggestions that cautious counsels were prevailing in Tehran. If so, the Israeli attack on Iranian personnel in Damascus may have altered the calculations. But the immediate impact of recent events should enhance the reputation of Israel’s anti-missile defence capability. If only the Ukrainians could deploy Iron Dome. Equally, the successes against Iranian weaponry might ease the pressure on Netanyahu to respond with massive retaliation. Might – or perhaps not. A different outcome would certainly have made a general Middle Eastern conflagration more likely. Now? “Wait and see” sounds awfully wet, but that is where we are.

Niall Ferguson, a historian who has thought as deeply as anyone about the causes of war, reckons that we are only three or four geopolitical missteps away from a Third World War. Although one sees his point, it could be argued that he is being too alarmist. In the run-up to the First World War, there was certainly a lot of dry tinder around, almost as if awaiting a carelessly dropped match. Equally, the most recent European wars between major powers had been Bismarck’s three surgical-strike campaigns against Denmark, Austria and France. Limited objectives, limited time-scale, clear-cut result – and no risk that Europe would be left shattered: no guide, alas, to 1914. If the leaders running Europe in the summer of 1914 had known what the continent would look like two years later – let alone four years later – they might have stopped to pause.

So what is the tinder count now? First, what if the Ukrainian war ends favourably for Russia? Would Putin immediately look around for some low-hanging fruit, perhaps in the Baltics? Or would he turn his propaganda machine into declaring that Russia has won a great triumph: a second defeat of a fascist onslaught on the Russian homeland, and that, although more enemies were still there to be defeated, there was no immediate need for action.

There is another crucial question. How would the Russian populace react? Much Russian history has been a time of troubles. Mongols, Napoleon, Nazis, Stalin’s terrorists. There has often been someone hammering on the gates of Moscow. Body bags were part of the price everyone paid for being Russian. But for a few years, life improved. There was a currency which could be used to buy proper goods, not just watery cabbage and black bread, plus moves towards political freedom.

Now: freedom gone, hundreds of thousands of casualties, conscription – and economic conscription too. Will the average Russian just shrug his shoulders and declare that t’was ever thus? Or will the protest movement grow? God, those demonstrators are brave. Can they prevail? It is to be hoped that those in charge of the deep state will take time off from frustrating Liz Truss and work out what is happening in Moscow.

It is also to be hoped that those in charge of such matters have been stressing to the NATO states that it is time to gird up their loins. I remember a conference about forty years ago at which that ideological heroine Midge Decter asked the Europeans in the audience whether they wanted the Americans to stay. Being conservatives and other sensible persons. We of course said “yes”. “Well, you’re going to have to ask us real nice.” Most Europeans never did, and yet here the Yanks still are, at least until a Trump second term.

There is surely something infuriating about the way a lot of the European politicaI elite sneers and sniggers at the Americans, patronises them for their vulgarity – and then depends on them for defence. It is almost enough to lead one to support Trump.

As for war, the European mainland is tense, unstable and mostly ill-led. The dangers of a nuclear confrontation are real. But apropos reality, so is mutually assured destruction. Even if it is impossible to predict the outcome in Ukraine, all-out war seems unlikely. We are not back in 1914.

Equally, the Chinese must have been given pause for thought by events in Ukraine. Taiwan is mountainous – a bad country for tank warfare, much better for determined defenders. There are few ports suitable for amphibious landings, and there is a lot of sea to cross. If I were a Taiwanese strategist, I would be urging the leadership to acquire Iron Dome. Perhaps they already have.

So with the greatest of respect to Niall Ferguson – whose books are also very well written – we may still be a bit away from Armageddon, at least in Europe and the South China Sea. That said, this may not apply to Armageddon itself – Megiddo – which is in Israel. The next few days are going to be tense. Then again, what is new about that? “Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.” How can they ever be dampened down?

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